Breathwork Therapy
Moving forward and realizing goals for the future usually requires us first to give time to re-assessing, releasing, and reframing our past conditioning.
BREATHWORK
Based on ancient knowledge and current science, Breathwork uses a specific pattern of accelerated breathing called Conscious Connected Breathing to access blocked energy and emotions that are stored at the cellular level in our bodies.
The conscious connected breathing as practised in Breathwork generates a relaxed, non-ordinary state of consciousness that supports the expression and release of unresolved trauma, limiting beliefs and adapted behaviour patterns. These issues can be the cause of current day dysfunction that is often associated with depression, stress and anxiety.
By connecting to the breath, you are able to be in the moment, becoming more mindful with what is happening now as opposed to engaging in the mental chaos that so often distracts us from what is actually happening around us.
Breathwork is a profoundly effective breathing technique and therapeutic process that
Experiences During A Session
While the quality and content of a Breathwork session is unique to each person’s intentions, needs and their particular life situation, there are some recurring themes that are often experienced:
Post Breathwork session outcomes
A Breathwork session can deliver immediate experiences and clear awareness that are life-changing in the moment. The session can also result in more subtle effects that may even seem like nothing happened and yet result in you feeling lighter, clearer more at peace. No matter the experience in the session, Breathwork opens the door to experiencing more of life in the present because it resolves the influences, traumas and stored emotions of the past.
When the effects of Breathwork integrate into life, it changes and shifts outlooks, values, choices, decisions and behaviours. As the safety of the process meets the participant’s desire to transform, Breathwork offers profound, limitless possibility for growth and resilience in life.
What some of my HEROS say about the importance of healthy conscious breathing!
Brene Brown
‘Learning how to breathe calmly and remaining in a state of relative physical relaxation, even while accessing painful and horrifying memories, is an essential tool for recovery. When you deliberately take a few, slow deep breaths, you will notice the effects of the parasympathetic brake on your arousal.” The most effective strategy for staying with emotion………… is breathing
Gabor Mate
The loss of breath and the connection to the body are the outcomes of early trauma
Bessel van der Kolk – The body keeps the Score
It’s very, very basic, you know, but sorely lacking in our diagnostic system is simple things like eating and peeing and pooping, because those are the foundation of everything. And breathing. These are foundational things, all of which go wrong when you get traumatized.
Another fantastic resource for a deeper understanding of the breath and how it truly has the power to heal us is the book ‘The Healing Power of the Breath’ written by Doctors P. Brown and Patricia Gerbarg, who say: Studies now reveal how breathing may be used to relieve stress, anxiety, depression, and PTSD as well as stress-related medical problems, such as inflammatory bowel disease. When we speed up or slow down our breathing, we activate the sympathetic and parasympathetic responses. (Any kind of breathing, not just “diaphragmatic breathing” affects the vagal nerves.)
By controlling our breath, we can wilfully influence the brain and the autonomic nervous system and literally change our mind-body state. By changing the pattern of our breathing, we change the pattern of the information being sent to the brain.
In other words, how often, how fast, and how much you inflate your lungs directly affects the brain and how it operates.
Breathing affects every organ, system, and function in the body. Every physiological, psychological, and emotional state has a corresponding breathing pattern.
When you change one, the other changes. Therefore, Conscious Breathing techniques have the potential to transform the quality of your life on every level.
Inroads In Trauma Treatment: Self-Regulating Emotions, (using conscious breathing for emotional regulation) Extract HeartMath Institute (HMI) Director of Research Rollin McCraty, Ph.D. and researcher Maria A Zayas, Ph.D. in their article, Cardiac Coherence, Self-Regulation, Autonomic Stability, and Psychosocial Well-Being.
How can self-regulating one’s emotions begin to help in trauma cases? To begin with, they explain, it is important to understand that when someone changes, or self-regulates his emotions, there is a corresponding shift in his heart rhythm. "This shift in the heart rhythm," they write, "in turn plays an important role in facilitating higher cognitive functions, creating emotional stability and facilitating states of calm. Over time, this establishes a new inner-baseline reference, a type of implicit memory that organizes perception, feelings, and behaviour."
This new baseline is key because its purpose is to replace the internal baseline reference in which the memory of a traumatic event gets activated over and over. The key mechanism we use to regulate (or suppress) our emotions is breathing.
Dr Stephen Porges - neuroscientist behind Polyvagal Theory
Breathwork could be called the ‘How to Master Your Nervous System’ given the work of Stephan Porges, understanding of the Vagus nerve as the primary nerve of the ANS and the KEY to activating the Vagus Nerve is long deep breaths.
Jackie Chan – ‘Don’t forget to Breath’
On a lighter note in the movie Forbidden Kingdom one of Jackie Chans protégés asks him just before a fight, ‘what if I freeze’ and Jackie responds ‘don’t forget to breath’.
More about the WHY
Our earliest conditioning and development of the Inner Belief System (the thinking that runs or ruins our lives) begins before we can consciously remember, through conscious breathing we connect with the part of the brain that holds this early history and conditioning, release any repressed emotional responses held in your body, re evaluate and change your perspective of what happened, freeing you to be at CHOICE not living from reaction.
Depression & Anxiety
Depression and anxiety are symptoms increasingly felt by otherwise healthy highly functioning people. They are also symptoms increasingly experienced by young adults and children.
Suppressing avoiding and or denying our emotional responses to life’s events over time will accumulate and contribute to depression. When this happens our need to keep a lid on these repressed responses increases our fear and anxiety of going into overwhelm, or showing our feelings of vulnerability and so we put all of our energy into creating ways to continue this pattern of avoidance. We are in a constant state internally of fight/flight putting enormous pressure on our adrenal system.
It is the greatest loss of human potential and creative life force energy that exists today! And the insanity of it is we put all this effort and energy into denying or suppressing what are simply our natural responses to life’s events. Feelings of sadness, grief, loss, anger, frustration, but often equally suppressed emotions are those of joy, delight, enthusiasm, excitement, playfulness and spontaneity.
Breathwork is without question the most effective way to connect to your emotions and begin to feel free to express them in a healthy way.
Challenges you might need support with...
• Relationship or parenting issues
• Self confidence and esteem
• Anxiety, depression, insomnia
• Confusion, indecision, overwhelm
• Overactive or depressed immune system
• Adrenal dysfunction
• Weight/ loss or gain
• Recovery from emotional or sexual abuse
• Sexual or fertility issues
• Grief, loss, separation
• Pain management
• Learning difficulties
• Chronic fatigue
• Career challenges
• Direction and life purpose
• Life's not too bad you just feel stuck!
Behind every symptom there is always an unmet NEED, want or desire, which is generally beyond our conscious awareness. Core Connection Breathwork is the most powerful and direct way to access your subconscious mind, understand your core needs and take care of them in a healthy way.
Our deepest desire is for connection and relationships, the most important relationship we have is with ourselves, everything else flows from that!
How many sessions would I need?
One session may give you the insight you need, however generally two to three sessions are helpful to gain the maximum benefit and bring about positive lasting change. We work together to create a program of support when you have long term goals you want to achieve. This will ensure that the desired outcomes are achieved.
BREATHWORK
Based on ancient knowledge and current science, Breathwork uses a specific pattern of accelerated breathing called Conscious Connected Breathing to access blocked energy and emotions that are stored at the cellular level in our bodies.
The conscious connected breathing as practised in Breathwork generates a relaxed, non-ordinary state of consciousness that supports the expression and release of unresolved trauma, limiting beliefs and adapted behaviour patterns. These issues can be the cause of current day dysfunction that is often associated with depression, stress and anxiety.
By connecting to the breath, you are able to be in the moment, becoming more mindful with what is happening now as opposed to engaging in the mental chaos that so often distracts us from what is actually happening around us.
Breathwork is a profoundly effective breathing technique and therapeutic process that
- activates the body’s natural healing
- promotes self-exploration and self-awareness
- offers a path to conscious personal transformation
- gives deep insight into the core essence of challenging issues
- can connected us to states of JOY and Bliss
- release stress, anxiety and depression
- shift unhelpful beliefs and entrenched habits and behaviour patterns
- heal life hurts and traumas such as birth, loss, death and suffering
- support confident, conscious choice in the decision-making process
- break through our entrenched emotional blocks in order to navigate change and embrace our full potential
- improve self-awareness and the ability to re-program behaviours for greater presence and joy in life
Experiences During A Session
While the quality and content of a Breathwork session is unique to each person’s intentions, needs and their particular life situation, there are some recurring themes that are often experienced:
- Physical tingling, tightness, cramping or numbness are possible, sensations of energy moving through the body and feelings of peace, calm and connection within the body
- Mental, past memories, early childhood or birth events might come to awareness along with the ability to recognise learned limiting behaviours that impede well-being
- Spiritual awareness of bliss, unity and connection to a universal presence
Post Breathwork session outcomes
A Breathwork session can deliver immediate experiences and clear awareness that are life-changing in the moment. The session can also result in more subtle effects that may even seem like nothing happened and yet result in you feeling lighter, clearer more at peace. No matter the experience in the session, Breathwork opens the door to experiencing more of life in the present because it resolves the influences, traumas and stored emotions of the past.
When the effects of Breathwork integrate into life, it changes and shifts outlooks, values, choices, decisions and behaviours. As the safety of the process meets the participant’s desire to transform, Breathwork offers profound, limitless possibility for growth and resilience in life.
What some of my HEROS say about the importance of healthy conscious breathing!
Brene Brown
‘Learning how to breathe calmly and remaining in a state of relative physical relaxation, even while accessing painful and horrifying memories, is an essential tool for recovery. When you deliberately take a few, slow deep breaths, you will notice the effects of the parasympathetic brake on your arousal.” The most effective strategy for staying with emotion………… is breathing
Gabor Mate
The loss of breath and the connection to the body are the outcomes of early trauma
Bessel van der Kolk – The body keeps the Score
It’s very, very basic, you know, but sorely lacking in our diagnostic system is simple things like eating and peeing and pooping, because those are the foundation of everything. And breathing. These are foundational things, all of which go wrong when you get traumatized.
Another fantastic resource for a deeper understanding of the breath and how it truly has the power to heal us is the book ‘The Healing Power of the Breath’ written by Doctors P. Brown and Patricia Gerbarg, who say: Studies now reveal how breathing may be used to relieve stress, anxiety, depression, and PTSD as well as stress-related medical problems, such as inflammatory bowel disease. When we speed up or slow down our breathing, we activate the sympathetic and parasympathetic responses. (Any kind of breathing, not just “diaphragmatic breathing” affects the vagal nerves.)
By controlling our breath, we can wilfully influence the brain and the autonomic nervous system and literally change our mind-body state. By changing the pattern of our breathing, we change the pattern of the information being sent to the brain.
In other words, how often, how fast, and how much you inflate your lungs directly affects the brain and how it operates.
Breathing affects every organ, system, and function in the body. Every physiological, psychological, and emotional state has a corresponding breathing pattern.
When you change one, the other changes. Therefore, Conscious Breathing techniques have the potential to transform the quality of your life on every level.
Inroads In Trauma Treatment: Self-Regulating Emotions, (using conscious breathing for emotional regulation) Extract HeartMath Institute (HMI) Director of Research Rollin McCraty, Ph.D. and researcher Maria A Zayas, Ph.D. in their article, Cardiac Coherence, Self-Regulation, Autonomic Stability, and Psychosocial Well-Being.
How can self-regulating one’s emotions begin to help in trauma cases? To begin with, they explain, it is important to understand that when someone changes, or self-regulates his emotions, there is a corresponding shift in his heart rhythm. "This shift in the heart rhythm," they write, "in turn plays an important role in facilitating higher cognitive functions, creating emotional stability and facilitating states of calm. Over time, this establishes a new inner-baseline reference, a type of implicit memory that organizes perception, feelings, and behaviour."
This new baseline is key because its purpose is to replace the internal baseline reference in which the memory of a traumatic event gets activated over and over. The key mechanism we use to regulate (or suppress) our emotions is breathing.
Dr Stephen Porges - neuroscientist behind Polyvagal Theory
Breathwork could be called the ‘How to Master Your Nervous System’ given the work of Stephan Porges, understanding of the Vagus nerve as the primary nerve of the ANS and the KEY to activating the Vagus Nerve is long deep breaths.
Jackie Chan – ‘Don’t forget to Breath’
On a lighter note in the movie Forbidden Kingdom one of Jackie Chans protégés asks him just before a fight, ‘what if I freeze’ and Jackie responds ‘don’t forget to breath’.
More about the WHY
Our earliest conditioning and development of the Inner Belief System (the thinking that runs or ruins our lives) begins before we can consciously remember, through conscious breathing we connect with the part of the brain that holds this early history and conditioning, release any repressed emotional responses held in your body, re evaluate and change your perspective of what happened, freeing you to be at CHOICE not living from reaction.
Depression & Anxiety
Depression and anxiety are symptoms increasingly felt by otherwise healthy highly functioning people. They are also symptoms increasingly experienced by young adults and children.
Suppressing avoiding and or denying our emotional responses to life’s events over time will accumulate and contribute to depression. When this happens our need to keep a lid on these repressed responses increases our fear and anxiety of going into overwhelm, or showing our feelings of vulnerability and so we put all of our energy into creating ways to continue this pattern of avoidance. We are in a constant state internally of fight/flight putting enormous pressure on our adrenal system.
It is the greatest loss of human potential and creative life force energy that exists today! And the insanity of it is we put all this effort and energy into denying or suppressing what are simply our natural responses to life’s events. Feelings of sadness, grief, loss, anger, frustration, but often equally suppressed emotions are those of joy, delight, enthusiasm, excitement, playfulness and spontaneity.
Breathwork is without question the most effective way to connect to your emotions and begin to feel free to express them in a healthy way.
Challenges you might need support with...
• Relationship or parenting issues
• Self confidence and esteem
• Anxiety, depression, insomnia
• Confusion, indecision, overwhelm
• Overactive or depressed immune system
• Adrenal dysfunction
• Weight/ loss or gain
• Recovery from emotional or sexual abuse
• Sexual or fertility issues
• Grief, loss, separation
• Pain management
• Learning difficulties
• Chronic fatigue
• Career challenges
• Direction and life purpose
• Life's not too bad you just feel stuck!
Behind every symptom there is always an unmet NEED, want or desire, which is generally beyond our conscious awareness. Core Connection Breathwork is the most powerful and direct way to access your subconscious mind, understand your core needs and take care of them in a healthy way.
Our deepest desire is for connection and relationships, the most important relationship we have is with ourselves, everything else flows from that!
How many sessions would I need?
One session may give you the insight you need, however generally two to three sessions are helpful to gain the maximum benefit and bring about positive lasting change. We work together to create a program of support when you have long term goals you want to achieve. This will ensure that the desired outcomes are achieved.